Water Pollution

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As you saw last week with air pollution, there are four different types of pollution. I will now talk about the second type, water pollution. Water pollution happens when humans dump toxic chemicals into bodies of water. The toxic chemicals can vary from paint, motor oil, sunscreen, and even sewage.

What is water pollution?

Water pollution can be defined in many ways. However, it usually means substances which are in water which damage the health of animals and humans.

What are the main types of water pollution?

  1. When pollution comes from one source (e.g. a factory discharge, oil tanker, ), it is called point source pollution
  2. When pollution comes from many sources (e.g farm and urban development), it is called non-point source pollution
  3. When pollution enters an environment and can affect a place thousands of miles away (e.g nuclear waste dumped into an ocean), it is called trans boundary pollution

What are the effects of water pollution?

This question is very vague-- it actually depends on the type of pollution.Sewage discharged into coastal waters can make people ill if they swallow the water. Sewage can also poison shellfish which grow near the shore. People who digest these shellfish can be poisoned too.However plastic can have a very different affect on animals. It can strangle them. It just depends on the pollutant.

How can we help?

Unlike many other issues, there isn't really a simple solution to this problem. However, there are the three steps to solving every problem which can be used.

  1. Education--- Just informing people of the issue an drive the next two steps
  2. Laws-- After you educate people,  the politicians will feel pressured to pass laws
  3. Economics-- After laws, the politicians can run ads and educate people to stop the issue

Please let me know if you have any questions on this issue, we will highlight some questions in a post and answer them in the future. I will respond to all of them, so write as many as you want.
I used: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/pollution/
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/waterpollution.html
Photo: Pollution in the Yellow River, Mongolia
Pollutants from a factory in China.

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